Sarah Silverman welcomes the challenge of making comedy that’s sensitive, smart, and wary of the rules of contemporary discourse.
Photograph: Robyn Von Swank/Hulu

One significant shift in political discourse over the last decade or so is the way conservatism has established something of a stranglehold over the notion of patriotism. Issues ranging from terrorism, policing and even standing for the national anthem at football games have been framed in the same familiar way. The message is that if you really love your country, you’ll support stricter immigration policies, stand in obeisance when you hear The Star-Spangled Banner, and offer unbridled support for law enforcement.

But the comic Sarah Silverman, with a new Hulu show aptly called I Love You, America, is out to prove that patriotism transcends partisanship. The show, which premieres on 12 October, is being billed as a “social-politics sandwich”, stacked with the meaty perspectives of Americans across the ideological spectrum. As Silverman explained recently, it’s not quite sketch comedy, not quite standup, and not quite a talkshow.

Always say the unsayable: life lessons from Sarah Silverman

Read more

Instead, it’s a kind of comic cross-country pilgrimage, reveling in awkward and often obstinate encounters between people who see eye-to-eye on practically nothing. In one episode, Silverman, who is Jewish, will dine with a family who have never met a Jew. In another, she’ll host Megan Phelps-Roper, a former member of the Westboro Baptist church. The comic’s inclination to engage with those who disagree with and even offend her materialized in the wake of Donald Trump’s election. As her sister, Susan, told the New York Times: “She was sobbing, beside herself, like her guts were coming out, but in that conversation, she said we have to start listening to each other and can’t go on like this in our own echo chambers.” Silverman, generally sarcastic and idiosyncratic, seems ennobled by the country’s intense polarization, too. “You’ve never changed someone’s mind by arguing,” she added.

There’s no hiding Silverman’s own political allegiance, nor will she try to. The comic was a vocal supporter of Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary and went on to speak at the Democratic national convention, where Hillary Clinton accepted the party’s presidential nomination. She has railed against discriminatory voter ID laws, advocated for more gun control, and tweeted angry, earnest missives in response to Donald Trump.

Unlike other comedians who feel stifled by “political correctness”, Silverman – who was widely derided 16 years ago for using a racial slur to characterize Chinese people – now welcomes the challenge of making comedy that’s sensitive, smart and wary of the rules of contemporary discourse. “If you’re so scared of changing with the times, then you’re old,” she told the New York Times. “There are comedians I love to pieces who roll their eyes. ‘Oh, another word I can’t say.’ You don’t know enough words?”

I Love You, America comes with an official hymn, too, released on Monday ahead of the show’s premiere. In it, Silverman’s sings the country’s praises and its pitfalls, offering something of a mission statement for her new project. “I love you America, from sea to shining sea, from the east coast to the west coast, and whatever’s in between,” she sings in top-to-bottom denim, parroting the “coastal elite” persona by which many entertainment figures are characterized.

After listing all the ethnicities and religions she loves, Silverman pauses for some introspection: “Wait a minute, what am I doing? I’m listing kinds of people. I’m categorizing human beings and putting them into little individual boxes. Whether I mean it or not, I’m part of the problem.”

Acknowledging that is the first step to making formidable political commentary, even more so now, as people have zeroed in on the fault lines of progressive punditry, among them a tendency to revert to smugness. But Silverman’s willingness to implicate herself in the country’s schisms doesn’t guarantee the show will be any good. And despite her standup bona fides, on display in her Netflix comedy special Sarah Silverman: A Speck of Dust, Silverman knows the current television lineup is replete with comics discussing the state of the union, from Stephen Colbert to Samantha Bee and even Chelsea Handler, whose Netflix series – a similar mix of talkshow and travelogue – focuses less on celebrity fluff than it does Trumplandia.

Why can't rightwing comics break into US late-night TV?

Read more

For Silverman, I Love You, America will have to offer something considerably different if it hopes to spread optimism in an age of paranoia and helplessness. She won’t be detailing the daily chaos of the administration, in the style of late-night comedy, nor will she offer any kind of prescription for the resistance. As she told the Times: “I am interested in hearing about people’s feelings, and as corny and hippy-granola as it sounds, it is the root of everything.”

While she may be right about that, one wonders if viewers, too, are interested in how people feel. It seems like every week we get a new gonzo-style piece about the “flyover” state Trump voter, and most merely recycle their sentiments of isolation, economic displacement and animus towards the DC “swamp”. For liberals, too, there’s no shortage of outlets for catharsis and advocacy. In short, contemporary politics is all feeling; what it lacks is empathy. Thus, Silverman’s task – to use the former as a vehicle for the latter – is a noble one. And she most certainly has her work cut out for her.